Weekly Guitar Equipment Highlights:]

Hello, and welcome to Guitar World’s weekly gear round-up, your one-stop-shop for keeping up to date with what’s been happening in the big wide world of guitar gear over the past seven days.

From new electric guitars to amp modeler updates, the guitar industry is never short of fresh releases, and it can sometimes be hard to stay in the loop with every new launch.

To make things a little easier, we’ve put together an essential must-read guide that will cover the major releases, the boutique drops, and everything in between.

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EVH 5150 Series DX

Oh ho, what do we have here? Some flashy new Deluxe 5150 Series electrics? With baked maple necks? And quilted tops? This is all very nice. Very nice indeed.

EVH has pulled no punches in creating its latest 5150 models, which promise modern and throwback appointments alike, from the EVH-branded Floyd Rose tremolo and EVH D-Tune, all the way to the 12”-16” compound radius baked maple fingerboard.

There are standard and quilted maple versions, with some sensational colorways on tap. Pacific Drift and Limeade Zest are absolutely killer.

Jackson Pro Plus Christian Andreu Rhoads RR24 EVTN6

Speaking of killer finishes, Jackson has treated Christian Andreu’s signature Rhoads to a stealthy new colorway: black with white bevels. Jackson isn’t exactly re-inventing the wheel here, but there’s no denying it looks sleek as hell.

Otherwise, the Gojira guitarist’s signature model stays true to the source material, with an Evertune F6 bridge, Fishman Fluence Modern humbucker and a three-piece neck-thru construction. It’s metal AF.

Gene Simmons to Krist Novoselic. Now the Firebird’s four-string sibling is back for the modern era. The new-for-2026 Thunderbird introduces some subtle-yet-impactful changes, not least in the form of that new non-reverse headstock, which is slightly more tapered than before.

It also has a neck profile, though keeps the usual scale length, and recruits a Hipshot Supertone bridge and Hipshot Ultralite Mini-Clover tuners. A fitting successor to the uber-cool offset bass.

Harley Benton ST-80FR

Harley Benton FR ST-80 — (Image credit: Harley Benton)

Harley Benton has embraced the spirit of the 1980s for its latest drop – a comprehensive cosmetic expansion pack for its ST-80FR model, which is available in dual and single humbucker iterations.

It’s all about the finishes here (though the Floyd Rose system is a nice touch). There is standard, sparkle, burst and beyond to enjoy here, with some rather daring artworks also on display.

Highlights include Amethyst Sparkle, Holographic, Pink Sparkle Burst, and Gold Sparkle Burst. Probably not one for the jazzers out there.

Valeton GP-150 and GP-180

Valeton has already cemented its reputation as one of the go-to affordable amp modeler alternatives on the market, offering widely praised digital amp and effect tones at prices that drastically undercut the market’s big guns. And the GP-150 and GP-180 look to continue that trajectory in impressive style.

One has an expression pedal, the other has an additional footswitch. But both are built on the same core tech and the same new modeling engine that powers them. It is, Valeton says, a bold and full evolution from the inside out, as the brand enters “a new generation”.

Key highlights here include 100 NAM (Neural Amp Modeler) profiles, lifted from Tone3000’s assortment of hugely acclaimed digital tone models, as well as up to 12 simultaneous effect blocks, 200 built-in effects and 200 preset slots. A serious contender for the ultimate affordable all-in-one fly rig.

jazz box – a collaborative build between Ernest Packaging, Signal, and Echopark guitars that serves as the world’s first archtop acoustic to be made almost entirely out of cardboard.

The Cardboard Chaos team have built plenty of cardboard guitars over the years – and they’ve been played by the likes of Billy Gibbons, Robby Krieger and Dweezil Zappa – so this is a natural extension of its work. Could cardboard be the tone-material of the future? Probably not. But it’s cool nonetheless.

Heritage Standard II Archtop H-575

Prefer your archtop jazz box to, er, not be made from cardboard? Well, you’re in luck. Because Heritage has launched the Standard II H-575. And it is most definitely made from traditional tonewoods.

Built in the ilk of the ES-175, the hollowbody is crafted in Kalamazoo, and offers a quintessential jazz guitar experience, with an updated headstock design, newly developed Heritage Custom Shop humbuckers, curly maple tonewood, and a gorgeous sunburst finish.

Line 6 Proxy

It’s taken its time, and it’s been rolled out somewhat under the radar, but Line 6 Proxy – the firm’s answer to gear cloning tech pioneered by the likes of Kemper and Neural DSP – is officially, finally here.

It was one of the biggest selling points of the updated Helix Stadium range, and though it wasn’t part of the feature set upon initial launch, players have been patiently waiting for Proxy to come around for months. It was seen as perhaps the final piece of the puzzle to bring Line 6 up to speed with its competitors.

Proxy looks and sounds great, and as someone who was already impressed with the Helix Stadium XL without Proxy, this is going to seriously take it up a level. Capturing on the Nano Cortex has been a big thing for me lately. I look forward to comparing it to Proxy…

Source Audio Pathways Reverb

Every new stompbox that looks to one-up a competitor is always described as a ‘pedal killer’, and while that phrase can be bandied about too liberally these days… we’re going to use it here. Could the Source Audio Pathways be the Strymon Flint killer?

It’s certainly set itself up for success. There’s reverb. There’s tremolo. There are variations for each. The reverb has Echo, Spring, Tank, Room and more; the tremolo has Harmonic, Optical and Bias modes. There’s also a healthy dose of control parameters, footswitches for each effect, and 16 onboard preset slots – but up to 128 presets can be recalled through MIDI.

Oh, and it’s all been put into a package that weighs in at the size of your standard effects pedal, saving you serious pedalboard real estate – the Flint, by comparison, is a fair bit larger.

Reverb and tremolo effects go hand in hand, and the Pathways looks set to make a name for itself. It helps that it sounds absolutely killer, too.

Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend and countless doom metal heroes – announced its return, with a little help from Fender. Since then, it’s revived and rebooted an array of combos and amp heads, and now it’s dropped the Beta Mini.

The Beta, according to Sunn, is often described as “the first great sounding solid-state amp” and ushered in a revolutionary design upon its release. Revered for its clean and distinctive fuzz tones that came courtesy of a unique analog MOSFET design, it was used by Kurt Cobain, Red Fang, Metallica, Tool and More.

The rebooted Sunn Beta Mini leads the new Sunn Modern line, combining that same sought-after design with the latest in amp-building tech. Two independent channels can be set for either guitar or bass use, and it can also serve as a standalone power amp for other preamps. Oh, and it’s just 10” wide and weighs less than 4lbs. ‘Small but mighty,’ as the saying goes.